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Lionhead Studios
Lionhead Studios (also known as Microsoft Game Studios Europe) was a British computer game development company led by industry veteran Peter Molyneux, and acquired by Microsoft Game Studios in April 2006. Lionhead started as a breakaway from the developer Bullfrog, which was also founded by Molyneux. Lionhead's first game was Black & White, a god game with elements of artificial life, strategy, and beat 'em up games. Black & White was published by Electronic Arts in 2001. Lionhead Studios is named after Mark Webley's hamster, who died not long after the naming of the studio. Black and White was followed up with the release of an expansion pack named Black & White: Creature Isle. Lionhead then released the popular'' Fable'', from satellite developer Big Blue Box. In 2005, Lionhead released The Movies and Black & White 2. On 6 April 2006, it was announced that Lionhead Studios was to be purchased by Microsoft. Their most recent game to be released is Fable III which was released on the 26th October 2010. Milo and Kate was being developed for Kinect, though speculation arose concerning whether it was actually a game or a tech demo. Production has since been halted. Corporate Structure For a period of three years, Lionhead established satellite companies, including Big Blue Box Studios (developers of Fable), Intrepid Games (developers of B.C., since suspended due to a massive overrun) and Black & White Studios (who have taken responsibility for the continuation of the Black & White series). Lionhead proper was working on three games: Fable, B&W2 and'' The Movies''; in addition, the studio may potentially have been working on Fable III and The Dimitri Project. The "satellite" system has ceased to exist in any meaningful form since mid-2004, however, with Big Blue Box having been more or less integrated into the main company, and Intrepid essentially having been disbanded. Lionhead was a privately held company until October 2004 (shortly before the suspension of BC) when a consortium of investors, including Ingenious Ventures, IDG Ventures Europe and technology firm Add Partners, made a significant investment into the developer. This at a time when the company was in severe financial straits, as they had over-run development on two projects, Black & White 2 ''and Fable'', and also canceled B.C. and a project with Jeff Minter named Unity. Between September 2005 and April 2006, Lionhead successfully released two titles, Black & White 2 and The Movies, as well as an updated version of Fable (entitled'' Fable: The Lost Chapters''). To date, these titles have not achieved a massive impact in sales, and this left the company vulnerable to a takeover bid. They have since finished the highly anticipated Fable 2 and an unknown game, for which only subtle hints have been dropped, which may have been a continuation of Dimitri. In April 2006 Lionhead Studios was acquired by Microsoft, signalling the end of independent development, and a focus on Microsoft's proprietary gaming platforms. Lionhead will be a fairly independent part of Microsoft Game Studios, which has also acquired Rare Ltd. and Bungie Studios (Bungie Studios became an independent studio in late 2007, shortly after the release of Halo 3). Closure On 7 March 2016, Microsoft announced the cancellation of Fable Legends and a proposed closure of Lionhead Studios. The closure came as a shock to some staff, who had suspected Microsoft were concerned but did not think Lionhead would be shut down: it was thought that the worst-case scenario would be that Fable Legends's assets would be used for Fable IV. Some staff put the closure down to "a string of bad decisions and mismanagement". The game was supposed to be released in summer 2015, after the release of Windows 10, and some said Lionhead had failed to meet their own targets. To comply with UK employment law, there was a consultation period, and the Fable Legends ''servers were not shut down until mid-April so that customers could get refunds. There was a small "live operations" team that conducted this process, but for others, work was optional. An attempt to save the project was made, under the name of ''Project Phoenix. This would have involved developing it with a new studio under licence from Microsoft, who supported the idea but it failed due to lack of time, and the fact that many Lionhead employees had found new jobs. On 29 April 2016, Lionhead closed down. One Lionhead developer, Charlton Edwards (the only one remaining who had worked on Black & White), said there was a giveaway, and he received some of the "trophies". Both current and former Lionhead developers gave the studio a send-off at a pub. On 26 July, Webley and Carr founded Two Point Studios, a studio that some Lionhead developers are working at. External links * Lionhead Studios at Wikipedia * Peter Molyneux at RAWG Category:The Movies Category:Browse